Galleries in Paris

Adrien Vermont is a graduate of l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. His first solo exhibition, Une histoire surnaturelle (A Supernatural History) consists of a set of drawings done in 2013 and 2014.

His works were inspired by Conrad Gessner’s Historia Animalium (1551-1558). Vermont replaced the 16^th century academic « drawings-engravings » by his own, but he kept  the original captions.

The Swiss naturalist is considered by many as the first modern zoologist. In this  History of animals, a vast work of 3.500 pages, each species is thoroughly described with the addition of  their use made by poets and philosophers.

Vermont’s drawings tend to overtake Gessner’s legacy, almost dynamite it. After his graduation, he isolated himself for several months. During this time which he calls his « unlearning period » he tried to rediscover the naivety and yet narrative efficiency of children’s drawings. His bestiary is authentic and subversive, in conflict with Gessner’s academic strictness. We are touched by these funny, lively, burlesque drawings.

With coloured pencils, pens and pastels, he offers the animals a second life. As the curator Julie Crenn wrote, he produces  « an intense and disarming expressiveness ». This artist is extremely skilful, his stroke is altogether wild and precise, his colours exhilarating. The words or expressions he adds are humoristic comments to Gessner’s captions.

This exhibition is supported by the Centre national des arts plastiques

(Subsidy for a first solo exhibition)